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Lineage of Coinage

Coins and paper money all over the world portray important figures, events, and places in the history of its respective nation. This is a form of propaganda, advertisement of a nation’s history on its coinage, which has both positive and negative effects on the consumer using the coins. Here, I am specifically looking at American coinage, but the same principles apply to other nations as well.

Coins each have the faces of different important historical figures to the United States on them. In high school American history courses, students are taught about the wonderful achievements the people on the coinage accomplished during their lives and their legacy left on the history of the nation. In other words, the reason they are on the country’s coinage rather than anyone else. The positive legacy of the historical figure creates a positive attitude toward the person. Having the figure’s face on a coin, something most people are going to see on a regular basis, creates what is called response reinforcing. Whenever a person sees the figures face on the coin, it is a reminder of the positive attitude or legacy thus reinforcing said attitude (Jowett and O’Donnell, 38-9, 2015).

This is clever nationalist propaganda to put important figures on the coins of their country because it promotes a sense of belonging among citizens, a common purpose to fill the shoes of those historic figures (Jowett and O’Donnell, 3, 2015). The majority of American citizens know who the important figures are on the coins, and what they did to be important to the nation’s history. These figures are a symbol of pride for Americans, being able to claim those important figures for their homeland. This positive reinforcement of the legacy of these people is not necessarily a bad thing as they are important people in history, however it means that citizens often times will have a biased perspective on the figure’s role and real life in history. Going back to the students, being taught the history they are only going to remember the positive aspects of the figure’s life, not the less biased view of the person. The coinage of the United States is propaganda vying for the positive memory of the historic figures printed on it, and therefore contributing to the destruction of less biased views of those people and their true history (Jowett and O’Donnell, 4, 2015).

The American coinage has many different symbols and words meant to represent the nation’s culture and history in addition to the important figures. A phrase that is on every penny to every one-hundred dollar bill is, “In God We Trust.” The United States is not strictly a Christian country, so why does the coinage imply as such? This question is still debated as a controversial topic today with the consideration of new figures for the five, ten, and twenty dollar bills. Most notably the consideration to replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill with Harriet Tubman or other important women of color (Blumenfeld, 2015). The phrase “In God We Trust” first appeared on coins in 1864, but the phrase was not officially issued for all coins and paper money until President Eisenhower approved it in 1957 (U.S. Department of Treasury, 2011). This phrase replaced the original motto of the United States since 1782, “E pluribus unum” (Simonson, 2010). The issue with the phrase, “In God We Trust,” is the implication of a bond between the state and Christianity. However, many other religions and beliefs are represented among the citizens of the United States, and thus makes this phrase false advertising for the country where all citizens have the freedom of religion, to practice, or not, as they so choose.